Improving patient experience starts by changing your approach. You need to be dedicated and caring towards your patients and not just behave friendly. Your frontline staff needs to be trained so that they offer customer service at par with B2C companies.
There are other nuances you must be aware of to improve patient experience. Do you know what steps to take?
Today, we will present some actionable strategies to improve patient experience.
First and foremost, get yourself online!
1. Create Online Patient Portal
A professional website with a smooth patient portal is the most basic step you can take to improve patient satisfaction. Over 66% of US healthcare enterprises provide online booking that helps 64% of patients book appointments over the internet.
It’s beyond doubt patients want to do things themselves. This is true for all businesses, as 67% of consumers will choose self-service over speaking to a representative.
Your website should help patients-
● Find information about your services
● Access list of available doctors
● Know about requirements for tests
● Book appointments online
● Find your clinic or hospital
You can link your website with your healthcare CRM to automate appointment bookings. Patients can also be mapped automatically to the best doctor based on their requirements.
2. Improve Collaboration and Communication
Poor communication between doctors, staff, and departments waste a lot of time. Patients have to wait unnecessarily in the waiting room while the treatment gets delayed. According to a 2014 report, poor communication wastes-
● 33 minutes during patient admission
● 40 minutes during emergency response team coordination
● 35 minutes during patient transfers
Most healthcare organizations adopting technology has overcome this problem to a great extent. Solutions like HIPAA compliant medical CRMs allow collaboration between teams and departments. Everyone can stay on the same page, thanks to 360-degree patient profiles with real-time information.
You can also use secure messaging, instant notifications, and push notifications on mobiles to facilitate communication and improve patient outcomes.
Fast and seamless communication with patients in healthcare reduces wait times and financial losses. Most importantly, they help patients get treated quickly, enhancing their patient experience.
3. Make Your Facility Navigable
Navigating a healthcare facility is not always easy. In fact, the difficulty patients face in finding their way has been a topic of great debate in healthcare. Numerous studies have shown how difficult patients find to determine the right door or staff to approach. The larger the facility, the higher may be the navigation challenges.
Using signs and maps is an easy way to make your facility patient-friendly. You can put signs with names of doctors on the doors, on X-ray rooms, sample collection rooms, and so on. Although it sounds simple, it is one of the best ways to improve patient experience in hospitals.
If possible, you can also consider investing in reconstruction to make your facility more navigable. Architects can actually design facilities that provide cognitive clues to patients and help them navigate.
Improving navigation helps you to-
● Improve care delivery
● Increase operational efficiency
● Enhance safety
● Improve response times
In the end, everything adds up to build a better patient experience.
4. Keep Patients in the Loop
Patients want to be treated like any other customer. They want health care providers to care for them, offer a good service, quality care, and keep them informed and updated. In a healthcare organization, this becomes crucial to ensure not only good service but also proper medical care.
Consider the last-minute appointment changes. You need to notify the patient and reschedule immediately to prevent losing your business. Or, maybe a slot is free, and you can fit in another patient waiting to get an appointment.
You should always keep your patients informed and in the loop. Using a health CRM system allows you to automate the whole process while increasing operational efficiency. For instance, patients receive instant notifications when a doctor adjusts his calendars.
You can even automate appointment scheduling, consultation reminders, follow-ups, and emails to keep patients engaged and improve patient flow in clinics and hospitals.
5. Help and Educate Patients
Providers who invest in educating the patients reap more benefits and customer satisfaction. If you are able to help patients lead a healthy life, you will certainly get due appreciation.
For instance, in times of COVID, you can create videos, blogs, and snippets on how to stay safe. You can even create weekly health tips and guides and send them to your patients.
In your facility, you can put up posters and boards. If you can allocate some budget, invest in digital signage. The displays can show texts, videos, and images that broadcast essential health tips or ways to avoid diseases.
Helping patients stay healthy improves patient experience significantly. They are more likely to become loyal customers and choose your service when they do fall sick.
You can use your CRM to automate emails and messages, and even schedule them in advance.
6. Collect Patient Feedback
Your patients are the best source to know what’s lacking. Consider conducting patient satisfaction surveys or gathering feedback on your services to identify areas of improvement. You can even automate the process through your healthcare CRM and send feedback forms post-appointments.
Focus on negative feedback more to improve your service. If you have introduced something new or made changes to your system, ask what the patients think. You can also ask them to provide an online review as it will enhance your online reputation.
Gathering feedback from patient interactions also helps you satisfy disgruntled patients and show you really care.
7. Adopt Technology
Using HIPAA compliant healthcare CRMs like LeadSquared helps you streamline your operations. You can offer a seamless service to your patients, ensuring proper and timely care. LeadSquared also improves collaboration and helps you save time and money. You can even manage your whole team and take advantage of mobile extensions to track field activities as well.
Try LeadSquared, and you may never have to worry about ways to improve patient experience! Along with that, you can also enjoy increased productivity and more profit.
